R. Scholes, Paradoxy Of Modernism (Ebook)

Publisher:
Yale University Press

Number Of Pages:
320

Publication Date:
2006-03-11

ISBN-10 / ASIN:
0300108206

ISBN-13 / EAN:
9780300108200

Binding:
Hardcover

Book Information:

In this lively,
personal book, Robert Scholes intervenes in ongoing discussions about
modernism in the arts during the crucial half-century from 1895 to
1945. While critics of and apologists for modernism have defined modern
art and literature in terms of binary oppositions—high/low, old/new,
hard/soft, poetry/rhetoric—Scholes contends that these distinctions are
in fact confused and misleading. Such oppositions are instances of
“paradoxy”—an apparent clarity that covers real confusion.

Closely
examining specific literary texts, drawings, critical writings, and
memoirs, Scholes seeks to complicate the neat polar oppositions
attributed to modernism. He argues for the rehabilitation of works in
the middle ground that have been trivialized in previous evaluations,
and he fights orthodoxy with such paradoxes as “durable fluff,”
“formulaic creativity,” and “iridescent mediocrity.” The book
reconsiders major figures like James Joyce while underscoring the value
of minor figures and addressing new attention to others rarely studied.
It includes twenty-two illustrations of the artworks discussed. Filled
with the observations of a personable and witty guide, this is a book
that opens up for a reader’s delight the rich cultural terrain of
modernism.